


There’s No Starting Over (No New Beginnings, Time Races On)

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa remembers, and she wishes to forget. The time passes and the echoes of who she has become is the reminder that there is no easy road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There’s No Starting Over (No New Beginnings, Time Races On)

You are sixteen and there is hate in your heart where once there was love. The last tears you cry, you shed on your knees, shoulders shaking, hands curled into fists, the head of your love, of Costia, in a box before you. You are sixteen and when you stand, it is not as a second, but as Heda. There is a burning in your veins and for the first time you crave death, you crave the heat of blood on your blade. You burn for war. 

\-- 

You are sixteen still when you arrive in the Ice Nation and bring a people to their knees with a cruelty you do not recognize. 

\-- 

You are seventeen when you arrive back in Polis, and do not recognize yourself. 

You are seventeen when you get a tattoo along the curve of your ribs, where Costia's fingers had once traced the scar there, of her favourite constellation. You do not cry, you allow yourself to think of your love for her, the last time. You can not be weak like this again. 

\-- 

You are both seventeen and eighteen when you are drunk and tell Anya how killing the Ice Nation Leader was the only time you have ever enjoyed killing. 

You are barely eighteen when she replies and tells you that's a good thing. 

\-- 

You are eighteen fully when Costia's mother asks for an afternoon of your time. And of course, you give it to her. You will give anything to her. She calls you Lexa, not Heda, when she speaks, and she leads you through Polis to the outskirts. On the fringes of the city she leads you up narrowing steps to a gate, to a house. 

You are eighteen when you walk into the house you know you would have wanted for Costia and yourself, before you were Heda. There is an open kitchen, with a window that looks directly onto the ocean, and the sweet sea breeze passes through the rooms like a current guiding you home. It brings tears to your eyes as you are shown the kitchen, where two cups of tea are made and you sit, and you do not feel. 

You are eighteen for the next thirty-six weeks that you go to the cottage, and sit with Costia's mother, talking of medicine, of politics, never of Costia. Never your mutual loss, or the aches in both your chests. 

\-- 

You are nineteen when you receive more death marks across your chest then you've ever gotten before. 

\-- 

You are nineteen and almost twenty when you're woken by the shouts of your people. 

You're nineteen and almost twenty when you stand on the roof and do not know what you're watching crash to Earth. But you feel the reverberations all the way in Polis, and know, deep within you, those are the tidings of change. 

\-- 

You are twenty when you first meet Clarke of the Sky People. 

You are twenty when you feel your heart ache for something other then the loss of your people. 

You are twenty when you first admit, in the peace of the house by the sea, that you are still weak. Weak because you feel a beating in your heart that is not the drums of war, or anger, but something you buried when you buried the chain you gave Costia in the field where you had first felt what is means to be wholly someone elses. (you had found it in the ruins of the Ice Nation, and it gave you no peace, only more pouring of hatred) 

You are twenty when Costia's mother tells you that you are not weak. You walk out of the house by the sea and do not return. 

\-- 

You are waning twenty when you watch what your betrayal does to Clarke. You watch it in her eyes, and realize later, that you were looking in a mirror. Four years fast forwarded, she is what you were, angry, betrayed, but not, not craving death. No, anything but that and when you come to understand what she sacrificed, what your betrayal cost her, you feel yourself break. You have always been weak. 

\-- 

You are twenty one when Clarke of the Sky People, a legend to all, is found near the walls of Polis. She is near death, broken, starving, you send her to the house by the sea without a second thought. There is only one person, one healer, you trust to save Clarke's life. 

You are twenty one when you return to the house by the sea again, and see the woman who helped raise you covered in blood. But also, and your stomach flips when you see Costia's determination in her mothers eyes. She tells you to sit, and you do, wanting to help but knowing your fumbling fingers will only get in the way. Instead you wait, your chest aching, you can not lose again. 

You are twenty one when Costia's mother brings you a cup of tea and tells you that Clarke of the Sky People is strong, and that if she survives the night, she will survive. For the hours until dawn, you do not leave Clarke's side, you do not touch her, barely even look at her, she has not forgiven you. Nor may she ever. 

\-- 

You are middle twenty one when Clarke first asks you to walk with her. You do. You listen. She explains. You continue to walk with her on the days when she has the strength, and on these walks, you learn. You help her understand. 

\-- 

You do not care how old you are when Clarke kisses you gently, in the house by the sea. You care only about now, about her hands on your hips, her breath on your neck. But for what it means, you do remember 

You are twenty one and two hundred and fifty five days when you realize that you are, in a sense, forgiven. 

You are twenty one and two hundred and fifty six days when you start to feel love in your heart again. It creeps in slowly, ebbing from the space where Clarke's body is pressed against your, flowing from the way her arms are wrapped around you, descending from the safety she brings to you. 

You feel for her, and it does not make you weak.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song 'My Silver Lining' by First Aid Kit


End file.
